Is Your Current Small Business Website Socially Unacceptable?

September 10, 2009 Small Business

Small business websites not only needs to be SEO “Search Engine Optimized” , but it also needs to be SEO “Social Energy Optimized” to be market effective. They need to utilize social networks and an effective social marketing strategy to generate traffic. Which leads me to the question. Is your small business website socially unacceptable?

So many static web 1.0 websites simply act as internet yellow page ads for their small business. They have a homepage, about us page, contact us page and then a few pages dealing with the products and or services that they sell. The site sits there lonely, waiting to be found or stumbled upon by a search, but in many cases is listed on page 14 with little hope of ever being found.

When I discuss with small business owners about their website, SEO and social marketing, I always ask:

1. What they are looking to accomplish from their web presence? (leads, sales, share information, etc)
2. Review their current site with them and have them explain it to me as they see it. What do they like and what do they not like?
3. When was it last updated?
4. What are they currently doing to achieve question #1

The number one answer to question #4 is that the designer used meta tags in the html so that they were search engine optimized, but it is not working and they feel that they wasted a lot of money. It is frustrating for them because is some cases they spent $10,000 on a website three to five years ago, and have not touched it since.

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Social Energy Optimized – The Other SEO You Can Not Afford To Forget!

September 8, 2009 Social Marketing

Are you creating social traffic and link energy for your website or blog through an effective social marketing strategy? Is your social profile, website or blog Social Energy Optimized to attract the attention of those using social network’s on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others? Do you have an action plan to capture and communicate with any visitor to your site? If you do not, you need to start re-thinking your overall marketing strategy, because you are leaving opportunities off the table.

To many their internet marketing strategy is one dimensional, based on what they have learned, know or feel most comfortable doing, but this is like driving a car with one, two or even three flat tires. It might move forward, but it scrapes along and finally dies. The reality is that there are four key components necessary to develop and implement an effective and successful marketing strategy that will give your internet presence the energy and velocity necessary for success. Even with a core strength that has gained you success. You need to focus on all four to establish an effective marketing strategy. The question is which components describe you and which are you forgetting?

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Targeted Social Networking – The Mother of All Social Marketing Weapons

September 7, 2009 Social Marketing

Do you know what Targeted Social Networking is? If you are a small business owner looking to market and grow your business in this ever competitive environment, you should…

Why waste time, money and resources carpet marketing your prospects with costly “me too” newspaper ads, junk mailings and radio spots, when you can utilize precision guided internet marketing weapons to hone in on your target prospect and customer at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of them time. With budget’s tight and competition growing, you need to identify who your target prospect and customer is and go after them with speed, precision and an effective plan.

The goal of any business (brick and mortar, home-based or online) should be to identify and capture (with their permission) the contact information of potential prospects and customers and begin to establish a marketing dialogue with them. The problem is that most marketing efforts are centered upon the premise that the business throw out a general ad to announce their presence, or are running a special and expect the prospect/customer to proactively respond. I am not saying that this did not work in the past and still does work to some degree, but with evolving changes in consumer habits on how they get their news, information, socialize, communicate and shop, you need to adapt your strategy or be washed over by the changing tide.

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Social Marketing Essentials – Turning Social Contacts Into Valuable Connections

September 5, 2009 Social Marketing

o much time and energy has been spent by business people to build up a stable of social contacts on what ever social network they choose to interact on with no idea what to do with them once they actually get them. Having 10,000 Followers is cool, but creating 100 new customers would be much cooler.

If you see social networking strictly as a mode of relaxation and communicating with friends, then your on target. If you created a social networking account to make strategic business contacts, find a new job, identify new clients or market your business than you need to develop an implement a social marketing strategy to achive whatever goals you want to achieve.

It is for that reason we created the online training program Social Marketing Essentials – Establishing an Effective Social presence for You and Your Business.

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Redifining Drucker For Small Business – We Must Capture the Customer!

September 4, 2009 Social Marketing

In the new social marketing genre the new call to action need to be to “Capture Your Customer”.

Peter Drucker’s famous quote “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer”, needs to be re-defined to adapt to the social marketing small business environment that we face today. In today’s market it is not enough to identify or “create a customer”, give them good service and assume profits and growth will follow as was taught. A small business today not only needs to “create a customer”, but they also have to also “capture and communicate” with them as well if they want to keep them.

The internet and an effective social marketing strategy offer individuals and small business a tremendous opportunity to not only identify who their customer is, but to capture them and establish a dialogue of communication and targeted a marketing to establish a loyal follower.

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So You Want 5,000 Followers on Twitter! Then What?

August 9, 2009 Social Marketing

So you are a small business owner, service provider, sales person or other professional looking to leverage the power of Social Marketing by developing a following on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Great idea, now what? With this question in mind I want to focus on Twitter. The fact is that most people who register an account on Twitter have no idea what they are doing or why they are doing it, other than everyone else is doing it. My hope that this post will help give you some simple strategies that will enable you to experience both success and fun on Twitter.
Let’s Start With How To Get Followed… The Right Way!

Every day I get hundreds of Twamming Tweets (Twitter Style Spamming) that tell me I can get you 5,000 followers in 5 days by clicking this link. I don’t click the link and usually stop following them, but even if they had a magic formula, what then? What do I have to offer them once I get them to follow me? An even bigger guestion is why do I want them to follow me?

Chris Brogan (who I highly recommend that you follow and read his blog at www.chrisbrogan.com), in his post August 6th Get More Twitter Followers TODAY, touched on the craziness that surrounds the desire to develop a following on Twitter. Chris received a huge surge in traffic because everyone wants to find the secret to more follower’s and he was going to share it. His tongue and cheek post basically made it clear that to generate a true following you need to work at it and he listed the following:

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Velocity For Success – Social Marketing Training Course

August 7, 2009 Social Marketing

Frustrated With Spinning Your Wheels on Social Networking Sites With No Results?
People join Social Networks because they see everyone else doing it, but have no idea how to actually make it work for them, their career or their business. They spend hours of frustration trying to figure out which sites to join, how to establish and set up an account and develop a profile with no plan, goals or target contact. Most give up after a week or two! Wasted time and a wasted opportunity!!! This Training Will Teach You How To Establish an Effective Social Presence on the Internet!

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Re-Thinking How Your Small Business Markets Itself – Social Marketing Revolution!

August 6, 2009 Social Marketing

The social marketing revolutions is upon us and web portals like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter will dominate how we communicate, how we prospect and how we market to our customers in the near future.

For years small business has invested billions of dollars in one-way marketing to “talk at” potential customers through print, television, radio and on the internet. The challenge is that consumer expectations are rapidly changing. To effectively market to prospects and customers you need to interact and communicate with them, not just talk at them. Social marketing enables you to establish a new level in communication.

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The Fab 5 of Micro Blogging Hubs For Summer 2009

July 14, 2009 bWeb 2.0 Marketing

Micro Blogging is a fairly new social communication tool that is quickly evolving into a primary form of communication. The Associated Press recently referred to Twitter “as the news outlet for the 21st century”. It is no fad and if you are not on Twitter or other hubs like the ones listed below, you will be soon.

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Do You Know How To Capture Your Target Customer? You Need a Big Net!

July 13, 2009 Velocity of Success

So many small businesses develop websites and blogs “web hub” in an effort to sell their products, services or share information. They fail to understand that to develop an effective web hub they need to develop a marketing vortex that will generate the link energy that will grow their site. One critical component of that marketing vortex is communication. You can generate tons of traffic by developing content, search and social strategies, but if you do not identify and capture your target follower/customer, you efforts will end in failure.

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